Last year’s No. 1 broker – and also 2014’s Australian Mortgage Awards Broker of the Year – has again increased his overall volumes, by $40m. Although that hasn’t been enough for him to hold on to the top spot, Raymond Xue puts this impressive rise down to focusing “on the referral channel, and customer service; spending more time on both”.

ACA Mortgage Solution, which is Xue’s brokerage, lost three supporting staff last year, but they have improved their marketing: news of their AMA win got over 42,000 views on social media network WeChat. For Xue, it was a year of transition: “I’m recruiting more people; at the moment we only have four, so my volumes have been affected.”

For Xue, APRA’s changes haven’t had much of an effect – “not much: the majority of my clients are on up to 80% lending. From the interest rate perspective, 0.2% or 0.3% more won’t have much of an effect on my clients”. It has, however, made the loan structuring part of a broker’s job more important than ever, he believes, particularly with complicated deals: “My clients who are professional investors don’t just buy one property – some have two or three, and one client has 15 properties.”

Many of these clients are foreign investors, but Xue isn’t worried by new fees that the government has introduced: “$5,000 I think will have a minimum impact on an investor … in China, if the share market crashes or goes down, they need a safe haven for their money, and the property market here is a pretty safe haven.” He also notes that many clients are buying for relatives or children who are living in Australia. Ultimately, Xue reckons, even if the market slows down, his existing clients will consider buying, and more will come through, so his considerable workload won’t be going down – Xue wrote 502 loans over the last financial year.

Xue has three pieces of advice for brokers looking to follow him: “You have to have a passion for this industry. And you also need knowledge of all the lenders, and to keep yourself updated about their changes. Customer service is also key for keeping the customer loyal
to you.”